Using streetview in R Markdown

The streetview package creates interactive Google Street View panoramas as htmlwidgets. In an HTML R Markdown document, a widget renders as a fully interactive panorama. In a PDF or Word document, it falls back gracefully to a static image.

Setup

You need a Google Maps API key with the Maps JavaScript API and Street View Static API enabled. Get one at console.cloud.google.com.

Add it to ~/.Renviron:

GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY=AIza...

Then run readRenviron("~/.Renviron") to load it in the current session. After that, streetview() picks up the key automatically — no need to pass api_key in every call.

Basic usage

# Iso Roobertinkatu in Helsinki, Finland
streetview(lat = 60.1625, lng = 24.9394)

The widget is fully interactive: click and drag to pan, scroll to zoom, and click the arrows to move along the street.

Controlling the camera

heading (0–360°, compass bearing), pitch (−90–90°, vertical tilt), and zoom (0–3) set the opening view:

# Vredenburg Crossing in Utrecht, Netherlands
streetview(
  lat     = 52.0930,
  lng     = 5.1133,
  heading = 120,
  pitch   = 5,
  zoom    = 1,
  height  = "800px"
)

Sizing the widget

width defaults to "100%" (fills the document column). height defaults to "400px". Pass any valid CSS value:

## Downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin
streetview(lat = 44.81121, lng = -91.49969, height = "300px")

Hiding UI controls

For a cleaner embed — e.g. when the panorama is illustrative rather than interactive — suppress the navigation chrome:

# NW Portland, Oregon
streetview(
  lat                = 45.52641,
  lng                = -122.68938,
  address_control    = FALSE,
  fullscreen_control = FALSE,
  link_control       = FALSE,
  pan_control        = FALSE,
  zoom_control       = FALSE,
  height             = "320px"
)

Static images

For non-interactive contexts — thumbnails, PDF reports, Word documents, or emails — use the static image helpers.

sv_static_url() builds the API URL:

sv_static_url(lat = 48.8584, lng = 2.2945, size = "640x400", heading = 150)

sv_static_img() returns a ready-to-display <img> tag:

sv_static_img(lat = 48.8584, lng = 2.2945, size = "640x300")

Static images are fetched at render time and can be embedded as base64 by knitr, making them work in self-contained HTML, PDF, and Word outputs alike.

PDF and Word output

streetview() widgets require a browser to render. In PDF or Word output, omit the widget and use sv_static_img() instead. You can branch on the output format with knitr::is_html_output():

Shiny

Use streetviewOutput() in the UI and renderStreetview() on the server:

library(shiny)
library(streetview)

ui <- fluidPage(
  titlePanel("Street View Explorer"),
  sidebarLayout(
    sidebarPanel(
      numericInput("lat", "Latitude",  value = 48.8584, step = 0.001),
      numericInput("lng", "Longitude", value =  2.2945, step = 0.001),
      sliderInput("heading", "Heading (°)", 0, 360,  0, step = 5),
      sliderInput("pitch",   "Pitch (°)",  -90,  90, 0, step = 5)
    ),
    mainPanel(
      streetviewOutput("pano", height = "500px")
    )
  )
)

server <- function(input, output) {
  output$pano <- renderStreetview({
    streetview(
      lat     = input$lat,
      lng     = input$lng,
      heading = input$heading,
      pitch   = input$pitch
    )
  })
}

shinyApp(ui, server)